Friday 14 January 2011

Black Templar FAQ

As per the title, there has been an update of the Black Templars, bringing their equipment more in line with Codex marine armies. I'm highly tempted to dust of my Templars and try them with the new rules.

(Not, image sourced from Warhammer 40K wikia, by Kingmonk I believe, used without permission. But it does look awesome)

The Full FAQ is available here: Black Templar FAQ

I'll go over the highlights quickly.

Page 23 – Kill Them All, Ignore “and follow the normal rules for target priority in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.” in the last sentence.
Edit- Just realised that this means you do have to take target priority tests. as previously. Bit strange though.


Page 27 – Cyclone Missile Launcher Change “as a missile launcher” to “as a heavy 2, missile launcher
With the ability to still take 2 heavy weapons in a 5 man squad, combined with the tank hunters veteran skill, This is going to be quite a nasty squad for about 260 points. Able to fire 4 strength 9 (effectively against vehicles) AP 3 missiles on the move, I may have to start replace my twin assault cannon squad.

Page 28 – Holy Orbs of Antioch Change “, rolling to hit as normal. If the Holy Orb hits, place the small Blast Template over a model in the target unit.” to “. The Holy Orb of Antioch is a blast weapon.
Not really a good or bad change, more chance of scattering but less likely to miss entirely.

Page 28 – Narthecium Change the second paragraph to “As long as the Apothecary is alive, all models in his squad have the Feel No Pain special rule.
Makes command squads a bit more worthwhile, especially if your putting lots of points into one.

Page 28 – Storm shield Change to “A storm shield is a solid shield that has an energy field generator built into it. The energy field is capable of deflecting almost any attack, even blows from lascannons and power weapons. A model with a storm shield has a 3+ invulnerable save. A model equipped with a storm shield can never claim the +1 Attack bonus for being armed with two close combat weapons in an assault.
About time, Combined with Accept any challenge, and furious charge, this is also going to be nasty. Unfortunately increased to 15 points for wargear But I'm not complaining.

Page 29 – Power of the Machine Spirit Change to “The vehicle can fire one more weapon than would normally be permitted. In addition, this weapon can be fired at a different target unit to any other weapons,
subject to the normal rules for shooting. Therefore, a vehicle that has moved at combat speed can fire two
weapons, and a vehicle that has either moved at cruising speed, or has suffered a ʻCrew Stunnedʼ or ʻCrew Shakenʼ result can fire a single weapon
That's more like it, none of this BS 2 nonsense either. This means a land raider crusader can now fire to full effect when moving 6" or less. Including firing the multi melta at another target at full BS. Also, vindicators can now fire their main weapon when moving up to 12" if equipped with the power of the machine spirit upgrade.

Page 29 – Smoke Launchers Change to “SMOKE LAUNCHERS Smoke Launchers are used to temporarily obscure the vehicle behind concealing clouds of smoke, allowing it to cross open areas in greater safety. See the Vehicles section of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook for details.
Ah well, all good things must come to an end.

Page 38 – Transport Vehicles Ignore the third sentence starting “The vehicles described here...” and ignore the last two sentence
Meaning dedicated transports can now carry other units like most other armies transports. How many landraiders can you squeeze into a 2000 point list now. :)

Page 39 – Land Speeder Typhoon Change all 3 occurences of “Typhoon multiple missile
launcher” to “typhoon missile launcher” and change “Range 48"; S 5; AP 5; Heavy 1, Blast, Twin-linked” to
“Frag: Range 48"; S 4; AP 6; Heavy 2, Blast Krak: Range 48"; S 8; AP 3; Heavy 2
That's better. Gives us more flexibility in choice of speeder units.

Page 48 – Shotgun, Strength Change “3” to “4
Making the combat shotgun a worthwhile weapon for neophytes now, Losing a strength 4 attack in combat. But gaining a strength 4 shot up to 12"

There are a few other changes, but these are the ones that I feel are going to have the biggest influence on game-play. Especially your terminators and land raiders (now assault vehicles for sure now by the way).

9 comments:

  1. I didn't know this one still applied though...

    Q. Does the Kill them All! rule mean that I have to test not
    to fire at the closest enemy? (p23)
    A. Yes, that rule still works perfectly as written, meaning
    that Black Templar infantry, jump infantry and bikes must
    test (with a -1 Ld modifier!) in order not to shoot at the
    closest target.

    It's been a while since I played your templars, but I can't remember you doing target priority tests for even longer! :oP

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  2. Because I always fired at the nearest enemy, normally because I was going to charge them :P

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  3. Fair point, but makes a difference for your devastator squa... oh.

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  4. Plus you know how effective my shooting phase is, wouldn't really make any difference to the game if I skipped that phase. Unfortunately the same goes for my Tau as well.
    I worked out what my, to hit average was in my last game 2/7. So not great. Why I went for a shooty army, I'll never know.

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  5. Yeah that was a bit of a doozy... at least when I went from my "guard that can't hit a barn door but seem to pull off some odd results in combat such as the hive tyrant tht died of sheer surprise that guardsmen were running TOWARDS him" to "orks" I was making a move that went well with my playstyle ;oP

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  6. This isnt a target priority test though is it? sounds more like a frenzy test for 40k so if you dont shoot the nearest unit you cant assult them but as your a combat army your going to anyway lets face it. suppose this rule means if you want to shoot a melta say at the tank behind them you need to test to overcome the need to shoot+charge the unit instead

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  7. It used to be the target priority test from 4th edition. However, it seems they have generalised it now. So, instead of firing my multimelta at the approaching landraider, I'll probably end up having to shoot at the slightly closer lesser deamons instead. :P

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  8. kinda makes sense i suppose, they would ignore a tank to attack a softer squishy unit even if said tank is probably going to mow them down next turn, that said chaos land raiders are the shite lascannon ones, if they were crusaders or redeemers then id worry about that decision

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  9. Previously, if you had an anti tank weapon, you could choose to fire at the vehicle instead of the infantry. With this update, you don't have that option. You'll have to pass a test to fire at the tank, otherwise your stuck firing at the troops.

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